My Cardboard Balcony

Things You Touch by Belinda Roddie old man wrinkles littered with print fading, inky white gray against pink fingers, trickling text against cuticles, crackling whiskers, constantly trickling down, down, down. hard-soft keys in a board pressing indent and impact fonts and ctrls and dels but you have that feeling against your hands, and you have that surface to play with. Malleable plastic and binding and wood and glass and disks to pop into slots and see pictures. but with just a slab and everything far too light - a flick of a finger across air to take a picture. No buttons, no scrapbooks - just floating icons so easy to see disappear. You lose the things you touch, and in the end, you lose the feeling altogether.

We found illegal substances in his car. But not the typical illegal substances like meth or marijuana or cocaine. As the sergeant lifted the trunk of the car, we all stood there with quizzical expressions and popped up eyebrows at the conglomeration of glass and metal canisters within the vehicle. "What are those?" Patrol Officer Taft asked. The sergeant lifted up one canister and eyed the symbol. It was alien.